“Judge, I really don’t care to see Robert again, and yet I can’t bear to do anything against him. He is my brother, after all.”
“Make yourself easy on that score,” said the Judge. “The District Attorney called upon me last night, with reference to a man named Montague, and I think we need say no more on that head.”
“And yet,” remarked Brayton, “it was somehow on his account that my own family are brought into this arrangement of the Vernon property, is it not?”
“Only as a sort of reparation,” returned Norton. “Robert’s wife, whose life he destroyed by his wickedness, was your mother’s sister, and Barnaby’s mother, my sister Lydia, was tenderly attached to her. The legacy you have in her will was her own to give, and was to have been doubled if this will of Bar’s father came to light, so that property could be reached. My own legacy is in the same shape. If, however, we had found the Vernon will, and Barnaby had died before his mother, all the property would have been hers, and your share and mine would have been vastly increased. I’m glad enough, however, that he is alive to claim it, for I have abundance already, and enough of the Vernon estate comes to me by my sister’s will as it is.”
“And to me and mine, too, I should say,” exclaimed Brayton. “We haven’t a ray of legal claim to it, otherwise than by will.”
“Then it seems,” suddenly remarked Bar, “that I am an Englishman, after all.”
“Scarcely that,” said Mr. Norton, with a smile. “Your mother was an Englishwoman, but your father was a New Yorker, and you were born within three miles of where you are now sitting. You have to come over and pay your English relatives a visit, however, as well as to take possession of your property.”
“That can be done for him,” said Judge Danvers. “For my own part, I should strongly oppose removing him from school at present. I wish, Mr. Norton, you’d have a talk with Dr. Manning about that.”
“Both he and yourself have a perfect right to be consulted,” said the Englishman, heartily. “We owe you a great deal of consideration in this matter; Mr. Brayton, do I understand that young Vernon is actually under your care at Ogleport?”
“Exactly,” said George, “and boarding in the same house. He has Dr. Manning’s own son for a room-mate.”